


Lost Boys

by lentezon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Peter Pan Fusion, Coping, Friendship/Love, Gabriel (Supernatural) is a Little Shit, Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Minor Character Death, Monsters, Neverland (Peter Pan), Pirates, and they lived happily ever after, only neverland isn't that great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-24 22:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14963549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lentezon/pseuds/lentezon
Summary: All children, except one, grow up.





	1. The Neverland

**Author's Note:**

> In my quest of playing around a little with writing different voices to learn more about my own, I wanted to blend J.M. Barrie's all-knowing narrator with my own ideas on the Neverland that I've always been a little in love with. It was a difficult one that at the same time totally ran away with me, and I'm very happy to post it. There's a little of me, and a little of Barrie, and a lot of the characters doing what they wanted that I had no idea would happen at all. It was a wild ride. I hope you'll enjoy it :)

**001**.

   All children, except one, grow up.

   They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Dean knew was this. Each night, when his mother tucked him into bed after another exciting day with exciting new discoveries, she would kiss his forehead and tell him with great conviction that angels were watching over him. Sometimes his father would be standing behind her in the door opening, rolling his eyes fondly, because Mary Campbell was not a religious woman. She was just a lovely lady with a romantic mind and a sweet mocking mouth that always had one more kiss in it that Dean couldn’t quite reach. Not the one that was meant for the baby in her belly and then the baby in the crib – the other one, in the right-hand corner of her mouth.

   That was how Dean would always remember her, far beyond his father’s exceedingly simplistic description that eventually was no more than a single word – _perfect_. But John Winchester had never been quite able to catch that kiss either. Perhaps he had never even known it was there.

   But then Mary got awfully sick, and John got awfully angry whenever she mentioned angels even though he would rarely act angry. He would just turn and walk out the room.

   Dean knew he would grow up, and that he would grow up fast, the day his mother didn’t mention the angels, so he did it himself instead. _“It’s alright, mommy, remember the angels, right?”_ and all she’d said was, _“Oh, darling, but I do.”_

   Sometimes Dean wondered if his mother knew the angels. Maybe they came to talk to her at the hospital, maybe only whenever Daddy went to the toilet because he didn’t seem to like them very much. Dean hadn’t ever seen them himself, either, but he was busy looking after Sammy because their neighbour Missouri was a nice lady but Sammy was _his_ baby brother, and Dean was already a big boy.

   He’d tried to tell Missouri this once, but she’d just smiled at him sadly and said, “Oh honey, I do hope he’ll come by soon.” Of course, this hadn’t been a useful answer at all, because Dean hadn’t mentioned any ‘he’ except Sammy, and he was playing with some toy cars on the floor.

   It would take another while for him to find out who she did mean, and he would never quite figure out exactly if this was what she had been talking about, or how she could have known.

   Years went by and the map of Dean’s brain, so different yet so similar to any other child’s, started to crumble. Maps of children’s brain nearly always resemble an island, cluttered with adventures – the island develops as the lines of roads on it do. Dean’s island included tree houses and toy soldiers that could talk and cool cars, and all kinds of monsters he could fight the way they did in the movies. There was a lake like the one near their Uncle Bobby’s house except this one housed a friendly Nessie. The weather was always nice.

   It all started to crumble when he started having to bring his brother along.

   Oh, don’t get me wrong. Dean loved his brother, but these adventures were his alone. The island was where he was a hero. How could he fight monsters when he had to make sure Sammy was safe?

   But he had to, because his mother was gone, and his father often was, too, so Dean was all Sammy had. It meant spending less time fighting monsters and more time in the treehouses, playing with toy soldiers that no longer felt much urge to talk.

   The treehouses looked increasingly like his bedroom, and more and more often there was rain hitting the roof that sounded eerily similar to John Winchester’s fists on a door.

   Soon, the way things were going, Dean Winchester would only still be able to hear the sound of the surf, but land no more. He would, but for one thing.

   It happened on a never-to-be-forgotten Thursday. Of course it was a Thursday. No one ever could get the hang of those.

   There were leaves on the floor below Sammy’s bedroom window again. It wasn’t the first time Dean found them, and often he would just throw them out the window right away so his father wouldn’t see and complain of the mess.

   It was weird, though, because there weren’t any fallen leaves outside at this time of the year. He tried to ask Sam about it, but the kid’s answer made even less sense than the leaves themselves. “It’s the angel, Dean.”

   “Angels don’t exist.”

   “They do!” Sam insisted. “They watch over us when we sleep.”

   Dean blanched. “Where’d you hear that?” There was no way Sam remembered that from their mother. He was too young when their mother passed away, he wouldn’t remember that she’d always tell them that.

   “I didn’t.” Sam crossed his arms. “I didn’t hear it nowhere, Dean, I saw him.”

   “Yeah, alright,” Dean said, at once relieved and disappointed and running a hand down his face in an effort to hide any feelings that could be shown there. He didn’t say it was probably just a dream, but it had to be. Angels didn’t exist. If they did, they would’ve saved their Mom.

   Something about it didn’t sit right with him, though, so he decided that tonight he’d stay in Sammy’s room. It wasn’t the first time he did it; sometimes they would hide from John’s anger together, or Sam would wander into Dean’s room in the middle of the night after having a nightmare, or Dean got tired telling Sam a bedtime story after his little brother just refused to fall asleep and just didn’t bother moving into his own room. (Except for the first one, none of this happened when John was home.)

   During those times, Dean had never seen an angel, and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t tonight, either. He just… wanted to make sure.

   That night was a clear night with a lot of stars that seemed to be crowding around the house, as if curious to see what was to take place there. Some of them winked, but Dean didn’t notice, and he wouldn’t recognize it for winking if he did anyway. Dean was almost a grownup now.

   Almost, but not quite yet.

   It was thus that when a strange breeze entered the room, Dean – who was only pretending to be asleep – knew exactly what was going on.

   “You.”

   “Oh yes,” said the boy. “Me.”

   He was sitting on the bedroom floor as if he had been there for a while, clad in skeleton leaves and sucking on a lollipop that Dean had likely once stolen to give to Sammy before realising perhaps his little brother was too small for that still. The boy had golden-brown hair and mischievous eyes, and the way Dean recognized him was this: the boy was Gabriel, and he was in charge of the Neverland. Because of this, all children, who still have their Neverlands, have a feeling of familiarity with him although very few ever actually see him.

   “What the hell are you doing here?”

   “Watching over little Sammy here.”

 _That’s my job_ , Dean very nearly snapped. “You’re not an angel.”

   The boy pretended to look shocked. “What makes you say that?”

   “The fact that you broke into my house, for one.”

   “My, my, look at you. Almost all grown-up, aren’t you, Dean?”

   “Screw you.”

   “That’s no language for a boy.” But Gabriel was smirking. “You’re too old for you age. You should come with me. Leave all your cares behind. Have some nice adventures.”

   “I can’t.”

   “Oh, but you want to.”

   He did. He so wanted to. “What kind of adventures?”

   Gabriel’s smirk broadened. “You could fight monsters, for one. Be a hero. Drive a cool car.”

   “I can’t drive a _car_.”

   “You could, if you come with me.”

   “Monsters aren’t real.”

   “You wanna bet?” But Gabriel was cunning; he knew better than to make Dean angry. “You deserve it, Dean. You’re always taking care of people, but you could be a hero.”

   “But—”

   “A hero, Dean. Vampires. Pirates. Like in the movies.”

   “I can’t leave Sammy.”

   “I never said you had to.”

   “That’s dangerous.”

   “It’s an adventure.”

   It wasn’t fair, really. Dean had always wanted an adventure, and here it was, being dangled right in front of his face. He never truly stood a chance.

   “I could teach you how to fly.”

   “Fly?”

   “Fly. Away from Kansas. Into the Neverland.”

   Oh, how wicked Gabriel was. Kansas, of course, meant their distant father; it meant Dean’s responsibilities. This needed not be said explicitly – perhaps if that had been the case, Dean would have been capable of saying no despite how desperately he wanted to say yes.

   “Okay.”

   “Okay?”

   “Teach me.”

   There was something to say for the fact that Dean didn’t question the statement. If he had, it is unlikely he would have been able to do so much as touch the ceiling, and everything would have gone differently – but then, we would not have had a story, and who doesn’t love a good story?

   So it was that Sam eventually woke up, and he saw his big brother flying circles around the lamp on the ceiling, and of course he wanted to try, too. Gabriel was only too happy to obey. Dean didn’t particularly like it, but he wasn’t going to deny Sam this, either. Hell, maybe he didn’t have to be the only hero. Maybe they both could do with an adventure.

   If John Winchester could’ve seen them right then, he would have shouted for them to come down, would have screamed at Dean for letting his brother do something so dangerous, would have made Dean crash to the floor in trying to get him to come down and inadvertently have crashed Dean’s ability to fly forever. But John Winchester was passed out on the couch downstairs, tired from a long day of working and then drinking, and for the first time, this may have been a good thing.

   Depending, of course, on what you count as a good thing.

   “Do you want an adventure, Sam?” Gabriel asked after Sam, too, managed to reach the ceiling.

   “What kind of adventure?” Sam asked, ever the practical child.

   “Any kind you want. There could be mermaids, or pirates.” Gabriel, as the leader of the Neverland, knew exactly what every child’s island looked like. “Or friendly lake monsters,” he added, knowing that this was a thing the brothers shared; it came from stories Dean came up with at their Uncle’s house, and Sam had always listened intently to those.

   “Can we go, Dean?”

   “How far is it?” Dean asked Gabriel, who waved the lollipop around in a grand gesture and said mysteriously, “Second star to the right, then straight on till morning.”

   “That sounds far,” Sam said worriedly. “We only just learned to fly.”

   “Are you afraid, little man?”

   “No.” Sam crossed his arms and glared so hard he nearly forgot to think of flying and only remembered when he had almost fallen back onto his bed.

   “Oh boy.” Gabriel clapped his hands once. “Well, we oughta go. Gotta leave while we can still actually see that second star.” At seeing the lingering doubt in Dean’s face, he added, “Last chance, Dean-o,” and Dean subconsciously understood it was bigger than a last chance for the night.

   “Can I ask one thing? Why us? Why now?”

   “Precisely because of that. You’re not ready to be a grownup yet, Dean. You shouldn’t be.”

   And without another word, he was out the window.

   “I wanna go,” Sam said.

   “Yeah.” Dean smiled at him, though it was a little weak. “Let’s go.”

   The journey was a lot longer than either of them had expected, and it was scarily difficult to stay awake during all of it. It didn’t help that Gabriel didn’t seem to consider their newness to all of it at all; he dove and swirled and tried to make them play games the whole way, and Dean was just starting to regret his decision and wondering if they would be able to find their way back when something appeared far below them.

   It was an island, and it looked strangely familiar and unknown at the same time.

   “Welcome,” Gabriel said, “to Neverland.”

   And not even you or I could have pretended it was anything short of amazing.

   “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore,” Dean muttered quietly.

   “There’s the lake!” Sam pointed, too excited to notice his brother’s strange mood. “Think that’s where Nessie is, Dean?”

   “Yeah,” Dean said. “Yeah, I think it is.”

   “And the pirate ship!”

   “We’ll wanna keep out of sight of that one,” Gabriel warned. “I don’t know what their current mood is, but generally they’re no great fans of mine. Follow me.”

   Gabriel led them to a part of a forest that looked very familiar to Dean, even if he’d never seen it in person. “Tree houses?” he guessed, though they were near impossible to see, camouflaged well. But no response came, because Gabriel was already gone. “What the—”

   He did not get to finish that sentence, which was perhaps good, as it was no language for someone his age. The reason, however, was less good: he could see the gleam of daggers pointing his and Sam’s way.

   “Who are you?”

   “I could ask you the same thing,” Dean snapped. “Who’s talking?”

   A figure stepped out of the shadows. He looked angry, but perhaps this was defensiveness. “We ask the questions here.”

   “Uriel.”

   Uriel looked just about ready to snap the other boy’s neck for having revealed his name.

   “They’re just Lost Boys. Like us.”

   “They could be monsters.”

   “So could you,” Dean interrupted. “Hell, we’re not the ones threatening to run you through with a dagger.” He had his arm around Sam, who was half hiding behind his brother trying not to look afraid. “How about we talk this out, huh? Let’s not do anything rash.”

   “ _Uriel_.”

   “Fine. But if they kill any of ours, that blood is on your hands.”

   Thankfully, it was at that moment that Gabriel decided to return. “Ah,” he said, “I see you’ve met my friends.’

   “ _Friends?_ ” Uriel and Dean said at the same time.

   “Let me make some introductions.”

   All in all, there were six of them. Uriel was the oldest, almost too old to look like he belonged in the Neverland, and he would not say it with Gabriel around, but Dean had the feeling he was in charge of the band when Gabriel was off doing weird stuff like stealing kids from their bedrooms. The boy who had challenged him was called Castiel. He looked about Dean’s age, not much younger than Uriel, but something about him made him seem terribly old. Then came Balthazar, gay and debonair, and Gadreel, the most conceited of the group. He thought he could remember the days from before he was lost, and this had given his nose a conceited tilt.

   The last were two girls who looked like they stuck together a lot and who were simply introduced as ‘the girls’, because girls were a rarity in the Neverland. They later would find out that they were called Anna and Hannah, and that Gabriel often called them ‘the girls’ instead of calling them by their names because he found the similarity terribly confusing.

   “Dean, Sam, these are my lost boys.”

   “And girls,” said the one with the red hair.

   “And girls,” Gabriel agreed. “Lost boys and girls, these are Dean and Sam.”

   All the lost boys and girls looked at them curiously, except Uriel, who was still scowling.

   Dean wanted to ask Gabriel where he’d run off to, but he must have realised it would be of no use. This was the dangerous thing about Gabriel: he had only a short attention span, and would often run off in search of a new adventure, sometimes without even finishing the previous one.

   “So, erm… Where’re we staying?” he asked instead, after a few moments of awkward silence.

   “There’s room in our treehouse,” said the girl with the red hair – Anna. She suggested this because she was endlessly interested in the new arrivals; it had been a long time since she had met anyone from the Mainland.

   “They won’t want to bunk with _girls_ ,” Gadreel said, as if the mere thought was preposterous.

   “I don’t mind,” Sam piped up. He didn’t think he liked Gadreel very much, and if boys and girls had separate treehouses, then he’d rather bunk with girls than with him.

   “Sam’s practically a girl anyway.”

   “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

   “What,” Castiel said in a raised voice, “if we all stayed in the Big House instead.”

   This was a daring suggestion. The Big House was only used for big celebrations, and always per suggestion of Gabriel. It was not that they were terribly afraid of him; all the Lost Children had surprisingly strong personalities, as we will find out throughout this story.

   But there was no denying that Gabriel had a power over the Neverland that no one else had, and if they had been (were) a little afraid, no one could truly blame them.

   “Excellent idea!” Gabriel said, instantly taking it up as his own. “We shall all sleep in the Big House tonight! I think we should have a celebration to welcome our new guests.”

   So they all marched in the direction of the Big House, wherever that might be.

   “Is it always like this?” Dean asked Anna quietly.

   “Oh yes. Castiel often steps over the line,” she said in a tone that was meant to be disagreeing, but with an expression in her eyes that said she didn’t.

   “Tell me about the island.”

   “Which part?” She was smiling, though. “You’re about to see our lair—it’s up in the trees as well, but never say that too loudly or the pirates might hear and—”

   “They don’t know?”

   “Of course not, we need to sleep safely and we’re still alive, right? The pirates are all grownups, anyway. They never look up at the stars anymore, they only care about seeing things on their own level.”

   “That means they’re idiots,” Gabriel butted in. He didn’t particularly like Dean; he’d only taken the brothers to the Neverland because he’d made the mistake of mentioning them when the Lost Children had asked about the Offshore (though the little one seemed alright). He’d wanted to tell them that the Offshore wasn’t a place they should want to go, because not all mothers are there and not all fathers are, either, and these two were a great example. He’d only interrupted because he didn’t like anyone getting less attention than himself. He was, after all, the one that went through all that effort to get them out of Kansas.

   (Gabriel did not actually know what Kansas was. He had heard it mentioned as he was flying near Sam’s window, once, and thought himself very smart for using it in the right way when talking to Dean earlier.)

   “What are they like?”

   “Cruel,” Gabriel said happily, subtly taking Anna’s place in the procession and leaving her to sulk behind them. “They hate us because they’re jealous of our youth, and we hate them because they’re mean grownups. It’s alright, though. We know how to kill them best. It’s very exciting.”

   As much as Dean had dreamed of having adventures, hearing Gabriel mention killing pirates so easily made him swallow a little.

   “But none of that now! If we don’t run into any monsters tonight, we can go look for adventures tomorrow. And if we do—” He looked very grave now. “There is one thing that every boy who serves under me has to promise, and so must you.”

   “Erm,” said Dean, eyes flicking to where Sam was talking to Castiel in front of him. Gabriel did not seem to notice.

   “It is this. If we meet the pirate captain in open fight, you must leave him to me.”

   Oh. Well, he could do that. “I promise.”

   “Good! Then we’ll not have any problems. Anyway, look up, boys, we’re here.”

   If you or I had looked up right then, we would not have seen a thing. We have gotten too used to things being the way they are Offshore, predictable and—some would say—boring.

   The Lost Children had no such limits, and neither did Sam and Dean.

   “Woah,” Sam said in awe.

   “Yep,” Gabriel said, popping the ‘P’.

   The children all happily made themselves comfortable in the house up in the trees, all together in the big cosy bed except for Gabriel, who considered this too homely for his tastes.

   “Tell us something about the Offshore,” Hannah demanded quietly.

   “It’s really nothing special.”

   “What about Cinderella?”

   “That’s a _girl’s_ tale,” Dean said, making a face.

   “Gabriel’s heard you tell it to Sam,” Anna argued. “He’s tried to tell us the story, but—well, you do know it better than any of us.”

   “He’s a good storyteller,” Sam said. “You’re a good storyteller, Dean. You should tell them Cinderella.”

   “But—”

   “Please?”

   This last word came from several directions and once, and Dean sighed and nodded. He didn’t mind Cinderella _that_ much; he was just used to having to defend himself against his peers, another sure sign of the Offshore’s influence. But the Lost Children had no such worries whatsoever, and he soon found them all listening intently—except for Gabriel.

   That was alright, though. He liked Anna better. 


	2. Wendigo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

**002.**

   “Get up! Get up, you lazy butts! We’re going on an adventure!”

   Such was the way Dean and Sam and the Lost Children were woken up from their sleep, all crammed into the nice big bed. Gabriel was making loops in the air above them, chucking twigs at the bed. “We have pirates to bother!”

   Dean groaned.

   “That better not be a complaint I’m hearing or I’m dumping you on the pirate ship like this,” Gabriel said, and then he was off.

   There would be a lot of adventures to come, and they are all equally interesting and magical and, in their own way, a little bit frightening; and there is no time to describe all of them, for the Neverland is so full of adventures that it would be impossible for us to keep up with all of them. But this was to be their first, and so we should be there with them, although I almost wish that it were a different one. If only it could be the lake, where the boys swam with Nessie! If only it could be the time they all played cowboy, except rather than riding horses, they rode the air—flew and flew around the island, endlessly tumbling and losing their silly hats!

   But no, their first adventure held a real monster, one that shows us just how grown-up Dean already was—for it was one of his, of course.

   He called it a Wendigo.

*

   His feet were making too much noise on the damp forest ground, kicking up leaves with every step he took. His breath was too loud, too; undoubtedly everyone in the vicinity was able to hear him pant. Dean was strong and tough for his age, but he wasn’t a runner. Dean Winchester didn’t have the kind of problems he could run away from, so he didn’t see the point in doing it.

   But here on the island, things were different, and his lungs felt like they would give out on him at any moment now. Yet there was no choice here but to run. He was still a child, if barely—he did not have the courage to stand up to a monster that would eat him alive if he let it too close.

   They’d been on their way to a mermaid lagoon when it happened. They had all been talking merrily when suddenly a loud growl disturbed the forest, and it only took a second—one second, in which Dean’s eyes met the blue ones of one of the Lost Boys, Castiel—for everyone to scatter, most of them likely flying off in different directions.

   Dean hadn’t forgotten how to fly. But he was faster than Sammy—everyone was faster than Sammy—and he knew they would lag if they stuck together. So he’d done the only other thing he could think of, and ran straight in the direction where the growling seemed to come from.

   There was a terrible stinging in his side now, though, and he was starting to regret his rash choice, but he didn’t want to fly off because it was better that the monster was following _him_ than anyone with whom Sam might be.

   He’d always thought monsters were stupid. That’s why they were monsters, after all. In fact, many people think this way—a monster is a monster, after all, and so they must be single-minded and evil.

   This particular monster, that Dean would later come to call a Wendigo, may have been single-minded, but only because it was doing something that made sense to it: it was hunting for sustenance. It was looking to feed on Dean. And it was gaining ground.

   Nevertheless, Dean couldn’t stop running. Despite knowing he could just up and away, even when he could hear the crude sounds of branches snapping and claws hitting the ground ever so much closer than before. He could not stop running until the monster overtook him, and there was pain and darkness and _at least it’s not Sammy_

   And then there was pain and darkness again, but different. It was not a blacking out darkness, but a kind of darkness only nature can offer. It was the darkness of a cave.

   “Crap,” Dean said out loud.

   His hands were bound above his head, which was uncomfortable because it strained his arms and a little painful because it chafed his wrists. His head throbbed painfully. What was worse, though, was that he couldn’t see or hear the monster anymore. There was nothing but the slow drip of water somewhere deeper into the cave.

   What if it had gone after Sam after all?

   It was at this moment that Dean started to regret following Gabriel to the Neverland, which is a dangerous thing to do as a child who is actually there. When a child on the Offshore starts being wary of the Neverland, they are applauded by those who have left it a long, long time ago themselves, almost as though those people are afraid of those who can still reach the island—or envy them. What would happen in the Neverland itself, however, is something we must never want to find out.

   We will, instead, silently sneak out of the cave and leave poor Dean there. He is scared and alone, but we cannot do anything but observe, and perhaps make things worse this way.

   And should we exit the cave, we would see another boy running—not from, but to something, although his steps were no less frantic than Dean’s before. His head was empty but for one thing: _find Dean_.

   Castiel had been running around the woods for a while now, after putting Sam in Hannah’s caring hands, but the island—though small for an island—was suddenly big if you needed to find something.

   Oh Castiel, most caring of the Lost Children! What a good thing it was that it was him who was roaming around to find the new boy; another may have given up already!

   He heard the sounds of something running that was most certainly not one of the Lost Children and shot behind a tree, trying to hold himself as still as possible. Whatever it was, he could not outrun it; not even had he been an adult with longer legs would it have been possible. Perhaps he could shoot up in the air if it found him, instead. His heart was beating hard against his chest and he was sure the creature must hear it…

yet it shot past his tree and away, perhaps to find the exact same thing Castiel was trying to find.

   The boy lifted himself up, just a few inches above the ground, and soared in the direction he thought the monster was going. It wasn’t faster than running—not if he wanted to be quiet, and that was the whole point. The higher up he was, the harder it became to avoid branches, and soaring above the treetops was pointless if he wanted to find something underneath them.

   Had he flown higher, he would not have noticed the entrance to a cave, either. It looked like it was normally covered up, but something had been eager to get in. Perhaps that was why Castiel didn’t know before that this cave existed. He had been on the island a long time, after all.

   “Please don’t be dead,” he muttered to no one.

   The air in the cave felt damp and cold, and it smelt like…

   Like death, Castiel didn’t want to admit even in thoughts. But he had never seen this creature before on the island…

   His thoughts were interrupted by a very inhuman growl and a very human yelp, and then he no longer cared about being quiet. It was too dark in the cave to shoot off at full speed, lest he crash into a wall and hurt himself to the point of uselessness, but he barely cared.

   It didn’t take long to find them; the thin, long-limbed creature that could stand up on its hind legs, towering taller than even the pirates, who were adults. And Dean, poor Dean, who hadn’t yet been able to see how marvellous the island could be, who was about to be ripped apart by the claws of something unheard of on the island.

   “Hey, assbutt!”

   It turned, and it looked at Cas with blood red eyes.

   “ _Cas_?”

   He didn’t look at Dean, mostly because he was too afraid to take his eyes off the monster. What _was_ this thing?

   It was now crawling toward him, much slower than Castiel knew it could be, but even more terrifying this way. It was as though the thing knew it didn’t need to be in a hurry, because it would be able to catch Castiel anyway.

   He had his silver dagger in his hand before he even realised it himself, it was such a reflex after so many years on the island. The monster’s eyes flicked toward it and back to Castiel’s face in barely a heartbeat, but it did not seem afraid. Of course not. The dagger may have looked like a sword on Castiel, but to a tall creature like this?

   He slashed at it anyway, when it lunged.

   Dean was moving, yanking at the ropes with which his arms were bound. The monster didn’t care. It cared about this new prey that had so willingly walked into its lair. It wasn’t about to kill either of them right away; it was going to feed on them slowly. It was just playing now.

   It was circling the boy slowly, enjoying the stupid way the human twirled around to keep an eye on it, when the other human suddenly stilled as if realising something. “Torch it, Cas!”

   “What?”

   “Kill it with fire!”

   How grateful we may be that Castiel had been on the island for so long, that he understood the way things worked here, that he could grasp its magic the way few others could! Because the Neverland held dangers, evils the way only Lost Children can imagine them, but it remains their turf and no one else’s.

   And so Castiel did not panic about not having fire, because he did. His dagger was on fire in an instant, and it did not burn him, but the monster roared in anger when the boy jumped at it, swift like only a small boy can be, and rammed his dagger into the monster’s shoulder.

   The monster clawed at the boy’s arm, and the boy let go, but the damage was done. It hadn’t been a torch, and it wasn’t even close to as quick as it could have been, but the monster’s slight fur caught fire nonetheless, and the smell of burning leather filled the cave and the boys’ noses, burnt their lungs. It was with tearing eyes that Castiel cut Dean loose and the both of them ran back out into the sunlight.

   They did not stop running until they had reached the edge of the forest, and only then did the dark-haired boy nearly collapse and the other grab his bleeding arm. “Shit, Cas.”

   “I’m fine.”

   “You’re bleeding.”

   “It’s but a scratch.”

   “Don’t be daft.” Dean, still wearing his outfit from Kansas, shrugged off his plaid, suddenly grateful for the layers he wore that he copied off his father. “Let me bind that.”

   And he did, with leaves and wrapped up with cloth that he cut apart with Castiel’s dagger, and Castiel looked up at him with wide eyes and said, “You are not a Lost Child.”

   Dean laughed humourlessly. “I guess that depends on what you see as a Lost Child, Cas.”

   There was a long stretch of silence as Castiel tried to figure out the meaning of that, and then he asked, “What was that thing?” because Dean had known how to kill it, so he must know what it was.

   “It’s…” Dean sighed. “I call it a Wendigo. They… They used to be human, once, but then they started relying on human pain, y’know? Like, feeding on humans or something, to keep going. And then they turn into monsters.” He wasn’t sure how to describe it, and he was a little ashamed of the explanation he had, because it was so stupid, and he had brought this dumb but terrifying thing here, he knew that. Despite everything, he still understood how the island worked.

   Castiel stared at him again, and Dean squirmed. “Cas, I’m sorry.”

   “For what?”

   Dean gestured at his arm, wrapped up almost expertly with sadly improvised materials, and then at the woods behind them, and said, “For putting you in danger.”

   “It’s not you who should be saying that, Dean.”

   “Yeah, well. I brought that thing here.”

   “We’ve all brought something here,” said Castiel quietly. “Some of these things are nice. Some of them are not.” In fact, many of them were not, though rarely were they as scary as Dean’s. “Do you want to go see something nicer?”

   “Is Sammy alright?”

   “Anna has him. She would take him to her lagoon.”

   “Is it safe there?”

   “It’s hers,” Castiel said with a shrug. That didn’t really make Dean feel much better, considering what just happened, but Cas didn’t seem too worried, and he did just save Dean.

   “What did you bring?”

   “Nothing but trouble,” said Cas, and he did not seem to mean it as a joke. “Let me take you to the lagoon.”

   Now, if you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire. But just before they go on fire, you see the lagoon. This is the nearest you ever get to it on the Offshore, just one heavenly moment. If there could be two moments, you might see the surf and hear the mermaids laughing.

   Indeed, Sam and Anna were at the lagoon, playing in the water, Balthazar nearby. A blonde mermaid with a golden tail splashed water on Sam every now and then, and he would cackle with laughter. On a cliff looking over the water were Hannah and Gadreel, conversing merrily the way only they could together. Uriel was looking over the group, smiling lightly. Gabriel was nowhere to be seen.

   Before feeling offended on Dean’s behalf, understand this: it is easy to get distracted in the Neverland when the need is high, and the mermaid lagoon especially is known to wipe other things from one’s mind. You and I could not understand, and those who have been there may never know exactly what it is they have forgotten about while there, which is often not so bad a thing at all.

   “It’s beautiful,” said Dean, the worst terror of the day already back in his mind as though it had happened weeks earlier rather than hours.

   “Yes,” said Castiel, following his gaze to Sam and Anna and feeling inexplicably sad.

   “Are they cool? The mermaids?”

   “I can introduce you. The one playing with your brother is called Joanna, but she would rather you call her Jo. She’s the most playful. The red one is her girlfriend, Charlie. She is very nice, too. Anna often hangs out with them, when she’s not required to go on an adventure with Gabriel. And there on that rock are Ellie and Tracy and Pamela, but they’re always trying to get Gabriel’s attention. And the young ones, Krissy and Claire and Alex—”

   “Woah, Cas, okay. Let’s start with this Jo and Charlie then, alright?”

   “My apologies.”

   He ignored the roll of Dean’s eyes and instead introduced him to the girls, who were immediately quite taken with Dean. They wanted to hear all about his adventures on the Offshore, and when he tried to tell them that there weren’t any, they wanted to hear about his adventures on the island so far, instead—and Dean talked about that day as though it was the greatest adventure he had ever had (which was probably true), as though it was cool and exiting (which it wasn’t). And Castiel’s heart sunk.

   Because Dean seemed to be quite taken with the Neverland despite everything that had happened that day. And although Castiel right then could not tell another soul, I think it is quite alright if I tell you, because none of us would be able to tell Gabriel, who only thinks of us as boring big people with no imagination, and would not even be entirely wrong. But Dean was new, and Dean was different from all the other Lost Children, and Castiel so wanted to tell someone that he was _doubting._

   But Dean looked happy, playing in the lagoon with Anna and his brother and the mermaids, and Castiel just slunk away instead. He’d seen the boy protect his brother, when they arrived. He’d heard the whispered conversation between the two when everyone was supposed to be asleep. If the Neverland made Dean happy, then Castiel would do anything to keep it that way.


	3. Castiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pro reading tip: Lost Boy by Christina Henry. I let myself be partly inspired by how unpleasant her Peter Pan is, even though Peter was my very first fictional crush...

**003.**

   “What did you do, Gabriel?”

   “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

   “You do know. The _Wendigo_.”

   “Oh, is that what it’s called!” Gabriel said happily, taking the lollipop from his mouth and showing off his blue tongue in the process. “Well, I don’t know what you want me to say, Cassie. You know how the island works. If that idiot brought it with him, it’s his own fault.”

   “Is that why you set it loose om him?”

   “I would never.”

   But that’s not true. One time, Gabriel had put Gadreel in a self-made ‘prison’ just because he had been play-acting like someone else—and because it was the Neverland, and they were all Lost Children, they had believed him for a long time, too. They never did find out who _Ezekiel_ was or used to be, and by the time Gadreel had been let out, he was almost a different person, and most certainly didn’t talk to them about it anymore.

   The Neverland was made up with everyone’s stories, but in the end, it was still Gabriel’s island. Gabriel had been the first Lost Boy, you see; no one knew where he came from, and certainly none of us will ever find out. We, too, used to think he was wonderful, and perhaps sometimes we still do, like that poor Missouri did.

   “Okay,” said Castiel, but they both knew he did not believe it. You see, Dean was already too grown up, and Gabriel would never have taken him in the first place had he not been awake and in Sam’s room that night, and had it not been impossible to take Sam without him. Gabriel didn’t like Grown Up, not even a little bit. If he had ever quite had a mother, he no longer missed her. He could do very well without one. He had thought them out, and only remembered their bad points.

   And Dean was a child, but he had many of those bad points grownups have, like acting like the monster in the bedroom closet wasn’t real even though it was, even though it might not live in his closet but rather openly in his house. And he would never play a role, only tell stories about people who did to appease his brother—and he would have held that brother back from the Neverland had Gabriel not been careful.

   Gabriel rather liked Sam. He hadn’t been entirely sure, at first, but they needed new Lost Children because they had just had a fight with the pirates, so he really hadn’t had much of a choice. Sam _had_ seemed a good fit, though, because he was young enough, and he’d liked stories about adventures, and he didn’t have a mother he might want to go back to.

   “The monster was all Dean’s, Cassie. You know how it works. He isn’t my responsibility.”

   Oh, but he was! Castiel thought, but didn’t say, because he knew it was pointless. It was him who had been on the island the longest, him and Uriel, and they had seen a lot of things happen and a lot of boys come and go and then a few girls, too. Gabriel would take them away from the Offshore because the Offshore was a mess and they had no mothers to get them through it. They could go on adventures with him instead, he’d say, and sleep in a big treehouse and have no rules and they would never have to grow up and become like the dangerous or boring adults.

   And they would go on adventures with him, and these adventures would be dangerous, too, but the children loved it because they were _adventures_ , and they never did have to grow up. They just died, sometimes.

   “Okay,” he said again, and walked away. There was a very unpleasant sensation in his back along his spine as he did so, and he hoped that Gabriel wouldn’t notice. If Gabriel knew what was going on, he would become very severe, if not worse, and Castiel wasn’t _afraid_ of him, per se, but…

*

   Gabriel often went out alone, and when he came back, you were never absolutely certain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten it so completely that he said nothing about it; and then when you went out you found the body. On the other hand, he might say a great day about it, and yet you could not find the body. No one could ever be quite sure with Gabriel, and there would be no way to describe all these adventures, real or not real, because there were so many.

   The other children were in many of them, too. There was the one with the mystery spot that Gabriel invented, which Dean rather enjoyed but Sam, for some reason, did not. There was the one with the haunted house that was frightening but, as even Uriel had to admit afterwards, _pretty awesome_. There were many adventures involving pirates, too,

   When Gabriel went off without a warning, and the weather was nice—which it usually is in the Neverland—they would all go to the mermaid lagoon together, and Anna would rope the younger ones into playing with Sam, and Uriel would stand around looking important, and Balthazar would try to get the one called Pamela’s attention without acting like he wanted her attention. Gadreel never played with them, but he did swim a lot, and sometimes even Hannah came along, but, she said, only if they wouldn’t laugh at her for swimming in her shirt, because she had been the first girl in their group and only because Gabriel had mistaken her for a boy when he invited her.

   Dean had by this point all but forgotten about the Wendigo, and he thought life was pretty decent here on the island. He wasn’t sure he remembered why it wasn’t very good on the Offshore, but it was an unspoken agreement that it wasn’t, so he didn’t question it much.

   This is how everyone was happy, except for one.

   Castiel had not forgotten about the Wendigo. In fact, he didn’t forget about a lot at all anymore, not even at the lagoon. This, as you and I surely know, is a sad side effect of growing up.

   Castiel didn’t feel sad. He felt annoyed. He did not really understand why it played up especially when he could see Dean and Anna play in the lagoon together, or lounge on the cliffs nearby. He didn’t feel it when Gadreel and Hannah had their deep conversations, or when Balthazar managed to convince Uriel to ‘get the stick out of his ass’ every now and then. They weren’t technically allowed to be closer to anyone than to Gabriel, and he had never before felt the urge to.

   “Are you always this quiet?”

   He very nearly gasped.

   “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare ya.” It was Dean, looking at him curiously.

   “How did you find me?”

   Dean snorted. “You really not that hard to figure out, you know.”

   He did not know. In fact, everyone tended to tell him the opposite. Perhaps that was why no one had ever followed him to the viewpoint he went to increasingly often; or, not entirely unlikely, no one did because no one cared about the viewpoint. Castiel enjoyed it, though. From here, he could see the entirely island: the town with Pirate Bay and the _Morningstar_ ; the mermaid lagoon; Nessie’s lake, the Nevertree which he knew held their treehouses. There was the Plains, a long stretch of green field; and there, all the way on the other edge of the island, the sand dunes.

   “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it.”

   “That is one way of describing it, yes.”

   Dean laughed, then his face turned serious again. “You know, I don’t think I ever thanked you for saving my life that first day. Not really.”

   “Don’t worry about it.”

   “Yeah, well, I do. I nearly left here right away, too, but then we got to that lagoon, and I just… forgot.” He was frowning now, not looking at Castiel but staring into the distance. “The lagoon makes you forget, doesn’t it, Cas?”

 _The island makes you forget_. But it _was_ worse at the lagoon, so instead of giving a fully honest answer, Castiel just nodded.

   “I don’t think there was much worth forgetting about home,” said Dean, “but I… I’m starting to forget what my mom used to look like. What colour her eyes were, and how her voice sounded when she’d sing me a song, and what song that actually was.” He looked at Cas, now. “I don’t wanna forget my mom.”

   “You could always leave.”

   Dean’s lips were turned down in a bitter grimace. “Could I? Sammy looks so happy here, Cas. Even with dangerous adventures, it’s almost like…” He shook his head. “I don’t think he wants to go home.”

   There was no point in telling Dean to go back alone, so Castiel didn’t. “Do _you_ want to leave?”

   No answer came for a long while. Finally, Dean said, “I dunno, man. I mean, home isn’t great. But this whole adventure thing…” He trailed off there, but that was alright. He was talking to the right person to understand.

   “Adventures are often better in your head,” stated Castiel bluntly.

   “How old are you, Cas?”

   “Eleven.”

   “I mean—how long have you been here? On the island?”

   As if Castiel hadn’t understood that that was what Dean meant! But all he said was, “A long time, Dean,” hoping that his tone conveyed that he did not want to talk about that. He wouldn’t know, anyway, not really; no one is quite sure how much time passes in the Neverland, at least not how many years it is on the Offshore—but Castiel would be right in saying that he was quite old, much older than eleven.

   Yet Dean wasn’t done. “What’s on the other side of the island?”

   “What other side?”

   “The side we’re not looking at.”

 _Nothing!_ Castiel wanted to say. _There is nothing on the other side!_ And again, he would not be wrong.

   “I’m sorry,” Dean said. “I’m pushing, aren’t I?”

   “No one’s ever pushed before,” said Cas.

   “Is that a good or a bad thing?”

   Castiel did not answer, because he did not know. Instead, he said, “Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?” and Dean said, “Gee, Cas,” but added, “of course”, and as the darker-haired of the two admitted that he wasn’t quite so sure about the island anymore after all this time, he could almost feel his legs grow taller.

   And Dean turned to face the other side of the island, and indeed there was nothing—a big, dark stretch of it, grey like burnt rocks, if such a thing could be possible. “What’s this?” he asked again.

   “I can show you.”

*

   Castiel aptly called the burnt-looking stretch of land The Burns. It wasn’t actually burnt, but the Lost Children had seen it once and decided that it must be, because of the way it looked, and so they had never gone back. Adventures are very unlikely when everything you can have them with has gone up in flames.

   Gabriel must have known what The Burns really was, but he had never told them—at first because he enjoyed being the only one in the know about something, then because he got bored by the whole thing and moved on to new places where not everything was dead.

   “There’s nothing here,” said Dean after a while.

   “No.”

   “Something’s not gonna suddenly appear outta nowhere and kill us, is it?”

   “No.”

   “…Where did you _come_ from, Cas?”

   But that was the problem; he could not remember. It had been so long, and The Burns had been burnt for so much of that time, that Castiel could not recall what used to be here before. He knew that he was the one to have done it, him and Gabriel, and he had always believed that that meant there had been something very bad here and they defeated it during an adventure that had slipped his mind; it would not be the first time something like this happened.

   Yet it couldn’t be. This wasn’t leading funny creatures into vampire nests to see who would be more grossed out by the other, and it wasn’t chasing pirates off their ship into the waiting arms of a crocodile, and it wasn’t messing with the town by dressing up the same way and acting exactly the same every day until they were driven mad. This was different. It was bigger.

   “You should go back to Anna and Sam,” Cas finally said.

   “Why?”

   “Because you have a lot more fun hanging around with them.” He wasn’t quite sure himself if it was a mere suggestion or an accusation.

   “Anna’s nice,” Dean said, “but she’s a little… a little nuts, y’know? All she wants is to play with those mermaids, and I guess they’re cool and all, and I’m not saying I don’t like girls, Cas, but I don’t want to hang out with girls all the time, either. And Sam deserves to be away from me sometimes before he starts thinking I’m his mom or something.”

   “Anna isn’t nuts.”

   “She is a little.”

   “I’m getting old,” Castiel blurted out, because as much as he wanted to let Dean enjoy the island, he had to tell someone. “I mean—”

   “You’re not eleven anymore. Or at least… You don’t look eleven.”

   “Neither do you.”

   “I’m not eleven,” said Dean, “I’m twelve.”

   He wanted Castiel to make a funny remark about it, or to acknowledge it at all, but the other boy didn’t. Dean didn’t fly off for funner adventures with the others, though. He thought Castiel was a pretty interesting adventure himself. Instead, he waited.

   “I don’t know how old I am,” Castiel admitted finally, “but it is older than I was when I came here.”

   Had it been anyone else, Dean would likely have responded with, _Well, duh._ But it wasn’t. It was Cas. And so he blurted out, “Come back with us.”

   “Back?”

   And even Dean was not sure why he had said it, because he barely remembered anything to go back to. He was forgetting what his father looked like, but he remembered other things about him—not the colour of his eyes, but the way the house would smell when they were supposed to be in bed; not the soothing sound of his voice before… well, before, but the sound of fists on his bedroom door. He remembered these because they had infiltrated his Neverland, even before he had arrived. They had infiltrated it and sucked the life out of it like leeches, and not until now could Dean admit to himself that even being here in person did not change that.

   He shouldn’t want to leave. He should be having adventures, fighting vampires and playing with mermaids and all that. Sam had fun here the way he did not have fun back at home; he had Anna and Charlie and Jo, and Gabriel seemed to actually like him in some kind of paradoxically detached way.

   “I don’t know,” Dean said eventually. “I don’t know, Cas.”

   And Cas answered, “All children, except one, grow up.”

*

   “ _He’s not coming back, you know.”_

   “ _What—what do you mean?”_

   “ _Your father.”_

   “ _I don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

   “ _Sure, buddy.”_

 _There were tears behind Castiel’s eyes that were never going to come out, anger trying to replace the awful hurt behind his chest. Chuck Shurley was never going to come back, and Castiel knew that. His father hadn’t been around in a while. He’d left without saying a word, like Castiel_ didn’t _miss his mother, like he hadn’t cried and cried and cried over her bloodied dress until he’d passed out._

_Or was it Castiel himself who had run? He wasn’t sure now what came first, running away from that house and the violent aura of death, or knowing he would never see either of his parents again. The streets were filthy and dangerous and cold, but no one was going to leave him anymore because he was careful not to care about anyone there. It was easy when no one bothered to look his way._

   “ _I know a place,” the other boy said, “where you can go and forget all about pain and tough streets and nicking rich people’s wallets.”_

_There was nowhere Castiel could go. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up at his old house, trying to see through the windows as if hoping his father would be inside, reading a book on the old sofa. He wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there for a long time._

   “ _There’s a lot of green space,” the boy continued. “And food, and adventures. And we’ll sleep outside there, too, but it’s fine because it doesn’t rain there. You wouldn’t have to worry about anything. We’ll just be friends and have fun and never grow up.”_

   “ _If I come with you,” Castiel said, “will you do something for me?”_

   “ _Of course.”_

   “ _Will you promise I will never, ever, have to see this place again?”_

   “ _Cassie, my friend,” said the boy, and only for a fleeting moment did Castiel wonder if he’d ever mentioned his name, “we can make sure of that together.” There was a glint in his eyes that promised more adventure_ (danger) _and fun_ (madness) _than his words ever could have done. “How do you like fire?”_


	4. On the Morningstar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second star to the right and straight onto the Morningstar.

**004.**

   “Dean! Han’s gonna teach me how to play hopscotch in the air!”

   “Lame, Sammy.”

   Sam pulled a face. “You’re just boring because you’re old.”

   “Don’t lie, I’m awesome.”

   “See, that’s where you’re clearly wrong,” said Balthazar. “Alright guys, c’mon, let’s leave the boring kids alone.”

   “I’m not boring!” Dean yelled after Balthazar, Hannah, and Sam. “Do you think I’m boring, Cas?”

   “You’re not boring, Dean,” said Cas, smiling slightly.

   “Do you think I’m boring, Anna?”

   She just rolled her eyes.

   Gabriel wasn’t around—he was gone strangely often recently, and no one was quite sure where he disappeared to. It would not be admitted out loud be anyone, but his absence always left a relaxing quiet behind. The fairies then take an hour longer in the morning, the beasts attend to their young, and when pirates and lost children meet they merely bite their thumbs at each other. Even Luc. Hook keeps to himself in those hours. How delightful the island is at those times! You could hear the children playing games, and the pirates singing songs not about killing but about drinking and eating and sailing the seven seas. If only everything could have stayed this way!

   But alas, we have now reached the evening that was to be known among them as the Night of the Nights, because it was the last night they had together before the Big Adventure happened that I will tell you about swiftly. The day, as if quietly gathering its forces, had been almost uneventful, as we know, and now the children were having their evening meal; all except Gabriel, who was still out.

   Evening dinners were often filled with questions—Lost Children asking Dean for stories, and Dean and Sam asking the Lost Children about adventures. But it was getting more difficult lately, because the Neverland makes you forget about the Offshore, and Dean was running out of stories that he did remember; and the Lost Children had so many adventures that one soon replaced the other in their memory. This, if nothing else, should have been a big warning sign, but that is a very grownup thing to think, so we shall not blame the children for not seeing it.

   Gadreel, of course, often filled in the blanks of stories that Dean could no longer remember, even though his suggestions were often a little strange; and Balthazar would tell about adventures that no one was really sure actually happened, because even for the Neverland they sounded a little weird. This all just added to the atmosphere, though, so they all went along with it.

   Soon they were all yawning, and not long after they all went to bed, because everyone knows the best adventures happen during the day anyway.

   Except this one.

   Gabriel had been out sneaking around the pirate ship, doing who-knows-what he did when he was off alone. (Sometimes, he pretended to be one of the pirates, and walked among them in disguise; he would drink mead in their bars and wear an eyepatch and growl a lot, and think himself delightfully clever for never being found out.)

   Tonight had been such a night, only tonight, there was a difference. There had been a woman—no, that isn’t right. There are often women in the bars in the pirate town, none of whom had ever interested Gabriel in the slightest because they were grownups like the pirates and therefore just as bad.

   This means Gabriel also never found out about her name, but I do know, and so I will tell you: the woman’s name was Ruby, and she was there per invitation of the pirate captain, whose name is widely known and will surely sound familiar to you. That is, of course, Lucifer, infamous captain of the Morningstar.

   Ruby wasn’t used to men not being interested in her, or in any of the other women in the bar. Which meant that, in turn, _she_ took an interest in the short man in her bar. She was one of those that could move swiftly and silently, and did so as she followed the unfamiliar pirate all the way out of the town, getting very excited when she realised she had to be on to something.

   Adults cannot find children’s hiding places, not when the children really do not want to be found—unless they are brought straight to them. Perhaps it was by accident, or perhaps Gabriel was ready for a new adventure; we will likely never know. But planned or not, he did lead the wicked woman to the Lost Children.

   She didn’t follow him in. She went back to the town, straight to the pirate ship, and explained the story to Lucifer instead.

   A more villainous-looking lot never left the town, past Execution Dock and to the edge of the forest. Here, a little in advance, his great arms bare and his beard dark and impressive, was the handsome Asmodeus, said to be the brother of the once-great pirate Ramiel. That dark man behind him had had many names since he dropped the one with which mothers still terrify their children—he currently went by Gordon, because he’d heard it somewhere and decided he fancied it. Here came Azazel, scheming and cunning, and Alastair, terrifying not in size but in viciousness (and proud of it). The gentleman Crowley, not entirely happy to follow this band but always happy to cause mischief. Bringing up the rear were Tom and Brady and Jason, young and energetic.

   In the midst of them, the largest jewel in that dark setting, reclined Lucifer, or as he wrote himself, Luc. Hook, of whom it was said he was the only man Chuck Greybeard feared (though this is based mostly on rumours). He lay at his ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a right hand he had the iron hook with which he ever and anon he encouraged them to increase their pace.

   Lucifer wore his favourite suit, all white, as though to show what a fine gentleman he was—he was rather concerned with good form, and the suit made him stand out as a bright beam in darkness. His men wore dark colours, because for all Lucifer’s worries about good form, he very much wanted to be the only one to stand out with it.

   So they paraded across the island, looking menacing and very much like trouble.

   “This is it?” Lucifer asked Ruby when she stopped.

   “Up there.”

   Only when she pointed it out to them all very obviously, did they see the treehouse, covered on the underside with leaves to look like any other tree one could walk underneath. At that moment, it was all quiet, for the children were all fast asleep. It may have been smart had they had sentries, but they hadn’t had to worry about their safety at night ever since they built the treehouse, and most of them had come to the island after that.

   Besides, they all agreed that attacking unsuspecting people in their sleep was quite bad form.

   It was of this that the British gentleman Crowley reminded the captain, but he was ignored (as happened quite often, for none of the others were interested in being gentlemen).

   The youngest pirate was the one called Brady, and it was him they sent up to climb the tree up to the big treehouse where the children were asleep. It was a very wicked way of fighting, if you can even call it that, and it was frightfully easy to capture them this way.

   Brady climbed up, and Tom climbed up, and Jason climbed up, and they had the children surrounded before anyone could open their eyes. It was a rather dirty way of winning, and they ought to have issued some sort of warning—but then that would have defeated the whole point of their strategy, so perhaps we ought to be lenient in this.

   “What the hell is this?” Uriel asked furiously, hands already bound, his voice a little lower than Dean thought he remembered it.

   “Don’t take it personally. We’re only going to kill you.”

   One should always take something like this personally; though it must be said that the children had killed plenty of pirates, too, so one could hardly blame them for wanting to repay the favour.

   “Are we really going to die, Dean?” Sam asked, quietly, the way only a child can that has not seen the biggest and most dangerous adventures the Neverland has to offer.

   “Like hell you are,” said Dean.

   Castiel was the only one to turn to look at him, because he was the only one who seemed to hear the non-answer.

   I would love to tell you about incredible fights, and the children kicking the pirates out of their treehouse down all the way to the ground, but unfortunately that wasn’t how this part of the story went. They’d been surprised, too fast asleep, to secure in their minds to hear the pirates before it was too late. And thus the pirates took them to their ship easily.

   It must be said, however, that none of the children cried, and they all tried to look unafraid, heads held high up in the air as they were marched across the island. If they were trembling, they were bravely pretending they were not. Even little Sammy kept his chin up. The only way to know they were terribly afraid was that they were all terribly quiet.

   But—wait. When one counts the children walking in line, there are only eight, not nine, as we know there to be. Lucifer may have realised this before we did; but then Lucifer is rather obsessed with Gabriel, and he of course was the one that wasn’t there. We will see later where he was hanging out.

   One green light squinting over Pit’s Creek, which is near the mouth of the pirate river, marked where the brig, the _Morningstar_ , lay low in the water; a rakish-looking craft foul to the hull, every beam in her detestable like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed that watchful eye, for she floated immune in the horror of her name—despite its incongruity.

   She was wrapped in the blanket of night, through which no sound from her could have reached the shore. A few pirates leant over the bulwarks drinking in the miasma of the night; other sprawled by barrels over games of dice and cards. The ones that had kept the children in line fell on the deck, tired but happy. No longer would they have to chase after these rascals during their days; they were all already here!

   The children were locked away for the night, and the pirates celebrated their catch with rum before falling asleep all over the deck, except for Lucifer himself. He was pacing the deck in thought—he had expected to feel more elated, with the children about to walk the plank tomorrow, and that damned Gabriel would come to try and save them, and then he would finally kill that flying bit of evil. Tomorrow his hour of triumph would come.

   But there was no elation in his gait, which kept pace with the action of his sombre mind. He was often like this in the darkness and quietude of the night; it was because among his men, he felt terribly alone. They were socially so inferior to him.

   As feared as Lucifer was, as infamous his name, do not envy him! He would act as though the world belonged to him, and in a way, it did—or at least he truly believed so. All the grownups on the Neverland either feared or revered him, and the children were all about to go down to Davy Jones’s locker.

   Usually, he wasn’t too bothered by the evilness of his name. It was, of course, not his real name; what was, would even nowadays still raise eyebrows and gasps all around the world.

   In this way, Lucifer stayed up through the night, and when the light of dawn arrived he crudely woke up his men and made them drag the prisoners outside, onto the deck.

   “You have a choice today,” Lucifer said without preamble. “You can all walk the plank this morning. But I do have room for a cabin boy.” He had come to this conclusion during his sad pacing in the night; that if he felt lonely, he might groom one of these children into the perfect pirate. He did not like them, but he knew they had outsmarted his pirates many a time, and smarts were nearly as important to him as good form.

   “No offense,” Balthazar said, “but I’d rather just die.”

   “And you will,” said Lucifer. “Anyone else? You, perhaps?”

   “If you’re gonna pick one,” Dean said, mind racing, “pick this one.”

   “Dean.”

   “ _Sam._ ”

   “A martyr,” Lucifer said. “I always appreciate those. Sam, is it? Have you ever considered being a pirate, Sam?”

   Sam may have liked to say no, but all boys, and many girls, too, think about being a pirate sometimes. Very few of them actually get the chance, though. “I…”

   “We could come up with a good name for you.”

   “Like One-Eyed Sam?” Sam asked, looking up with two round eyes.

   “Like One-Eyed Sam,” said Lucifer, amused. “Though I suppose we’ll have to give you an eyepatch then.”

   Dean was gritting his teeth beside them, something inside his chest aching. He didn’t want Sam to be a pirate with an eyepatch, but he didn’t want Sam to walk the plank either. He’d given Lucifer the suggestion on a whim, but he was already wondering if it had been the right idea, for all children have a love-hate relationship with the mere idea of pirates, and these weren’t very nice ones—and Dean wouldn’t be there to protect him, the way he always had before.

   Sam looked like he wasn’t quite sure either. He was small enough that being a pirate still sounded enticing despite the island’s hatred of them, but even he understood, if only a little bit, what Dean was doing. He just didn’t understand that Dean had always done it.

   “No,” said Sam.

   “Dammit, Sam,” said Dean.

   “He’s going to make you walk.”

   “That doesn’t mean you have to, too.”

   “Touching as this display is,” Lucifer said, “I’d rather not waste my time on it. But if you’re absolutely sure you’d rather be fed to the crocodile, then that’s what we’ll do. You can be the first to go.”

   “Fuck you,” spat Dean.

   Lucifer raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that the kind of talk you kids use these days? Rather bad form, I would say. No manners to speak of at all.” He took a step closer to Dean, getting far too close. “Oh, but you’re hardly a kid anymore, are you? I wonder why he brought you here at all. It’s almost like you’re dying to become a grownup.” He smirked at his own phrasing.

   But he was not wrong. Dean did want to be a grownup. He wanted to be big and tough and able to protect Sammy—from the pirates here, and from the pirate at home. It wasn’t like he would become _that_ kind of grownup. He would be exactly who he was, just bigger, and allowed to take Sammy and go far away from Kansas.

   He did not say any of this. It would have been in the way he held himself, posture stiff and head tilted upwards despite the fear in his eyes, had anyone cared to look.

   There would have been more to say, for if you looked well, he was not the only one. But no one had time to look well, for that was when they heard a horn being blown overhead, and Lucifer’s attention was instantly diverted by his archenemy.

   Gabriel was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at Lucifer’s hatred of him. True, he had flung Lucifer’s arm to the crocodile—the arm which replacement now gave him his second name, Hook—but even this hardly accounted for a vindictiveness so relentless and malignant. It wasn’t, either, that Gabriel was young still, or that he could fly where Lucifer could not (although had we had time to delve into his history, we would see that this is a sore point indeed).

   The truth is much simpler: there was something about Gabriel which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy, and if it had not been for this something, not even any kind of history they have shared on this island would have bothered him as much as it did now. There is no beating around the bush, for we now quite well what it was, and have got to tell. It was Gabriel’s cockiness.

   “Ah,” said Lucifer. “Our guest of honour has arrived.”

   “Come on, now,” Gabriel said. “Leave the kids alone.”

 _We’re not kids,_ Dean thought, but did not say. _None of us are kids, anymore._ Perhaps none of them ever had been, not here. Not really. They could still bring things to the Neverland the way a grownup could not—they could still _reach_ it—but the things they had brought… the burnt plains, and the mermaid lagoon, and the wendigo, and who knows what else has been brought to the island that wasn’t there before.

   This is not, he realised, an island of nor for children. It is an island of pain. Just different than on the Offshore.

   “We’re not kids,” said Uriel, but angrier than Dean’s thoughts had been.

   “Oh,” Gabriel said, not at all looking surprised. “Of course it was you. You were getting waaay to big and boring to be here.”

   “Oh, Uriel,” Cas muttered on the other side of Dean.

   Dean wanted to ask what the hell was going on, but before he could, Gabriel was landing between them and Lucifer. “Alright, let’s hash this out. I’m getting tired of having you on this island, anyway.”

   “The feeling,” Lucifer said with a smile, “is mutual.”

   The pirates all backed up into a half circle, opposite the pole against which the children (the not-children) were tied. This fight was their captain’s, not theirs, and Dean remembered what Gabriel had told them when they arrived here: _“If we meet the pirate captain in open fight, you must leave him to me.”_

   They were circling around, Lucifer with his sword in his hand, Gabriel with his silver blade. Dean tried to keep an eye on them while at the same time trying to wiggle free of the ropes. He had to get Sam the hell out of here.

   It felt like years they kept doing that little dance, until Lucifer finally laughed, loud and scary, and stopped moving altogether. “Proud and insolent youth,” he said, eyes twinkling, “prepare to meet thy doom.”

   “Great big bag of dicks,” Gabriel answered, smirking, “Have at thee.”

   It would not be of great importance to describe their fight, nor of great interest, for it was the other children that deserve our attention, and Hannah was the first one to break loose rather soon after these last words had been exchanged. She did her best to free the others as quickly as possible, but still not fast enough to get everyone free before the pirates noticed, not even with the ease of the loosened rope. And so the final fight was not merely between the pirate captain and the leader of the Lost Children, but between all of them, because many things might be said but none of them would fly away in times of trouble.

   “Sam, I need you to go and find a good hiding place, alright?”

   “I can fight, Dean.”

   “No, you friggin’ can’t, Sam, you’re eight.”

   “You’re being an asshole.”

   “I’m trying to keep you safe.” Dean sighed, ran a hand over his face. “I—”

   “I can take him,” Balthazar butted in. “We need more weapons. Sam and I can go get them.”

   There was nothing Dean could say to that. They _did_ need more—Dean had managed to slip his blade into his booth, and most others had done something similar, for even though they had believed themselves safe they were well-trained in taking care of themselves. But they were few, and the pirates were many and a lot bigger, and one of them was coming straight at them. “Fine,” he said, already spinning the blade in his hand. “Go. Go!”

   He didn’t check if they did go. There was no time. He joined the fight instead.

   And a fight it was! Dean had imagined what a swordfight would be like, of course, but never would he have been able to come up with this. His blade was too short to be called a sword, and it made it difficult to parry the pirate’s blows. There wasn’t much else he could do but defend himself, and the pirate kept smiling at him unpleasantly, like a cat playing with a mouse before he attacks and eats it.

   Next to him was Hannah, fighting two of the young pirates at once, surprisingly good at it. It wasn’t effortless, and she was panting, but her feet moved gracefully, as though she was dancing rather than fighting. “We need swords,” she said to Dean.

   “Sam and Balthazar are getting them,” Dean answered, parrying the pirate again before the sword could cut him. “Hell, fuck, they better hurry.”

   He’d hardly finished his sentence before there was a flash of steel and the pirate let go of his sword, cursing, the weapon clattering onto the deck. The pirate was more graceful than he looked, picked up the sword again in one smooth move despite his bleeding arm, and whirled around to see what had finally made his cat-and-mouse game more interesting, and for a moment Dean could not do anything.

   He hadn’t really fought much, not even here. He could defend himself, no problem, though he had only managed so easily with the blade instead of a sword because the pirate had not intended to kill him right away. But…

   “Little one,” the pirate said, “it’s time for you to go to sleep.”

   “Pirate,” Sam said, still hovering in the air, “it’s time for you to go to hell.”

   Their swords clashed, and the sound of it shook Dean out of his trance. He knew he had to do something, experienced in fighting or not—but his body was ahead of his thoughts. His blade was already out of his hand, right in the back of the pirate who had been stupid enough to consider them mere children.

   There was no time to think about it. He grabbed the dropped sword (not the blade, never again that blade that had now maimed a man), thought he said something like _Stay with me, Sam_ , and ran into the fight with a confidence that he hadn’t had before.

   This part of the story is not pleasant. It is not meant for children. What you need to know happened is this:

   Hannah was their best fighter, and she did her part well. She was experienced in killing pirates, and she kept up that reputation. Balthazar, too, did his part.

   Dean, in a heroic act of repaying a life debt, saved Castiel from falling victim to the British gentleman Crowley, and the three of them together worked to make the pirate walk the plank instead of themselves. Dean did not stay to look whether the crocodile finished it for them.

   Gadreel was nowhere to be seen. No one knew what had happened to him, and no one except Gabriel ever would, and only because it had happened on the Neverland—remember, Gabriel knows all on the Neverland. Even I cannot tell you where he went, but I do hope it is a good place.

   Finally, you must know that in Anna, something had snapped once they had broken loose and the fighting started. She charged right at Uriel, and even he who had known her for a longer time than we can imagine children knowing each other was surprised by the fury in her eyes. She was fire, like her hair. She was betrayed. She was not to be stopped. He did not stand a chance.

   But what ended the fighting once and for all was when Lucifer was defeated, and that is a part of the story worth telling.

   They were all tired, and they were few, and they were small; they were never going to win the fight. Of course, the children could have just flown off, and Dean was seriously considering it when suddenly he had a thought. “Sam,” he said, panting, when they had the shortest break from being under attack by a pirate. “Sam, fly up.”

   “I can fight, Dean!”

   “I know, dammit, just—just trust me, okay?”

   So they flew up, out of reach, all the way up to the mast where they were mostly out of sight, and Dean said, “Sam, remember Nessie?”

   “The lake monster?”

   “The lake monster. Can she reach the sea?”

   “I don’t know,” Sam said, frowning. “Why?”

   “You need to know, Sam.”

   His little brother did not understand, but there wasn’t time to explain. “I think so,” he said. “I mean, we never really looked, right? But I think she has legs. Like a dinosaur, but different.”

   The description was useless, but that wasn’t what mattered. “Alright, great. Let’s go get her.”

   “ _Get_ her?”

   “Get who?”

   “Jesus, Cas, wear a bell. Why are you here?”

   “We are not about to win this fight,” Cas said. “I would rather not give up, but I saw you up here. Is there a plan?”

   “We’re getting Nessie,” Dean said, impatient now. “No, Sam is. It’s gonna be suspicious if we’re all gone. Think you can do that, Sammy?” He didn’t want to let his little brother out of sight, but he also knew entirely sure that only two people on this island would be able to do it, and one of them wanted to off Lucifer all by himself.

   “Will you explain?”

   “Once you’ve done it. There isn’t time, Sam.”

   “Okay,” Sam said, because Dean was still his big brother, and Sam was still at an age where that could make all the difference in the world.

   Dean didn’t explain. He jumped back down to the deck, only using flight just in time to break his fall. He trusted Cas would follow. He trusted Sam would know what to do when he came back with Nessie.

   It didn’t take long for Sam to return. The good thing about him being so young was that he was still so young; he was so much more capable of changing the Neverland than any of the others. And Dean had guessed one thing right, even though he didn’t get what it meant: Nessie was Sam’s.

   And another one: Sam would know what to do.

   He came back actually _riding_ the monster, screaming something—though it was hard to hear over the clang of steel that was still all over the deck. If Dean had had the time to stop and watch, he would have; there was a strange mix of sadness and pride inside of him. And fear. He would never have admitted to that bit, but it was most certainly there.

   That was his little brother, and Dean should be protecting him, not encouraging him to ride lake monsters into battle. But damn, that was his little brother, and he was changing the tide of their fight.

   The pirates had noticed it, too. Some of them stopped fighting immediately, more interested in saving themselves. The handsome Asmodeus ran, though not fast enough for Nessie. Some of them, like Gordon, did not change at all. He seemed to have his mind set on Dean, for some reason, and found the boy time and time again on the deck. You see, it was hard for the pirates to actually hurt the children because the children would fly up, up, up where they could not be reached when things got too dangerous.

   They would not fly away, though. That would be frowned upon.

   “Dean!”

   Oh, but it would be so much better if sometimes they did.

   Many of the sounds of fighting had slowly ceased upon Sam’s arrival, and still Dean barely heard the sound of his name over the roaring in his ears that might have been the sea had the ship not been anchored in the quiet harbour. He hadn’t even noticed the sound until now, too focused on what he could see to make use of his other senses fully. That, too, is part of the charm of the Neverland—and of the danger.

   So when Castiel’s scared voice broke through in the form of his name, Gordon was already mid-strike.

   Dean jumped back, forgetting for a moment that he could fly—but not fast enough to avoid a burst of pain exploding in his right arm. “Shit!” And then, when he realised that Gordon wasn’t about to finish him off, “Shit!”

   Sam’s back was turned toward them, and Dean knew, without a doubt, that he couldn’t catch up with Gordon fast enough if he ran after him. But this time he didn’t even have to think about it—he set off in the air, faster than a bullet, arm outstretched with his blade in his hand—

   It was as though all his senses simultaneously opened up. He could feel the way the blade sank into flesh with force; could hear the collective shock of the pirates and the children that sounded almost but not quite like one very loud gasp; could smell the salt that was a tang too coppery to be sea water. He realised he let go of the blade only when the pirate turned to look at him, red droplets in the corner of his mouth, and said, “You—”

   “Me,” said Dean, pretending he couldn’t hear even in those two letters how terribly his voice trembled.

   “That kid’s a freak,” the pirate said, spitting out blood. “Taking that monster here—”

   “Not all monsters have to do monstrous things,” Dean said. He would know. That’s what his stories about Nessie had always revolved around.

   A hand slipped quietly into his own. Castiel. Neither of them spoke, just watched in silence as Gordon fell to his knees, spit out more blood. As the life drained out of him.

   None of the other pirates helped him. Some of them had jumped the ship when they saw Nessie arrive, like cowards, and some had been slain, but mostly, they realised they were fighting a lost battle. They’d backed away, listening to Crowley’s orders –the British pirate had miraculously returned the moment the fighting ended, seen his chance and jumped at it. Such is the way grownups are.

   “I killed someone,” Dean said after a long silence.

   “I’m sorry,” said Cas. Then, “You’re bleeding.”

   “It’s fine. Is Sam—”

   “I’m here. Dean, I wanna go home.”

   “Yeah,” Dean said, with a burning feeling behind his eyes and inside his chest. “Me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the scales that balance JM Barrie's writing style and my own tip more my way the more Dean grows up and I'm not sure what that says about me


	5. Epilogue (or: John Winchester's Story)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not much of a fan of John Winchester, so the fact that this John gave himself a background story and the possibility of redemption surprised me, too. But I think it's supposed to be like this.

**005\. (Epilogue.)**

   All children, except one, grow up, or they die.

   It was surprisingly easy to convince Gabriel that they had to leave, especially considering their little band had been thinned out by the fight. Gadreel had saved Hannah, but had disappeared almost right after that. Gabriel was furious with Uriel for betraying him, but couldn’t lash out because Anna already had. And Anna herself was gone, too, though no one knew where to—not even Gabriel, which made him all the more furious, because the island was his and nothing should happen there that he didn’t know about.

   “We could ask Charlie,” Dean suggested quietly to Cas.

   “I don’t think we really need to.”

   “Maybe not.” He wondered, idly, if any of them would ever see Anna again, and if they did, whether Anna would be a different person altogether. Whether they would remember each other at all. _The lagoon makes you forget._

   Perhaps Gabriel was so easily convincedbecause his band of Lost Children had fallen apart so easily, or because he had noticed that they were all growing up little by little and no one in his band was allowed to grow up. (Normally, he would thin out the group himself, and search for new ones, but he was surprisingly fond of Castiel.)

   Or perhaps it was because Lucifer was gone now and Gabriel was looking for more adventures, and going to the Offshore to drop off the Winchester children provided him with one.

   They took the ship. It needn’t be explained who was its new captain, and he was rather good at acting like a true pirate, yelling at his crew and sitting around dressed in far too big pirate clothes. It wasn’t quite the same, for Gabriel was not and would never be a grownup, but Dean was nonetheless glad to be leaving him soon.

   “I’ll go with you,” Cas said.

   “No.”

   “Why not?” He was hurt, Dean could recognize that, in a way that no child that lives on the Neverland could ever be. When they are Lost Children, they will just shrug and go on a terrific adventure by themselves, though nothing too dangerous—those adventures are reserved for when Gabriel is there.

   This was the kind of hurt that one can see in another’s eyes, clear as the summer sky (and in this case, equally blue).

   “There’s… I don’t remember there being much to go back to,” Dean admitted. “I don’t think that’s got to do with my memory, Cas. That’s just the way it is. It’s not that I don’t want there to be a place for you, but there just isn’t. Not with our Dad.”

   “There isn’t anything here for me, either. In the real world, I can grow up.” _With you_ , wasn’t said but was clearly in the air between them. “You’re my friend. If it gets you in trouble, I won’t come. But maybe… we can make it up as we go?” He seemed unsure of the sentence, though that could be because it sounded quite unnatural coming from him, as though he’d never used the words before.

   “I want him to come,” Sam piped up. “I like Cas.”

   “You and me both,” muttered Dean. “Fine. Just… I can’t promise you’ll like it.”

   “I don’t care,” said Cas.

   “Okay.”

   “Okay.”

*

   Their father was asleep in his old armchair when they arrived. Dean had half a mind to crawl back into bed and act like they had never been gone, but that wouldn’t explain Cas; and Sam was already wandering around the sleeping form. “I know him.”

   “That’s Dad,” Dean said.

   “Oh,” said Sam, staring at the man’s beard as though he’d never seen one before. “He looks a bit like you,” he said, a little unsure, “but very old. He’s not a pirate, right?”

   “Not really,” said Dean. The sleeping form looked very calm, though a little worried with the crease between his eyebrows, and the older boy was wondering if he remembered this man right or if he was mixing him up with adventures they’d had in the Neverland. He wouldn’t admit it aloud, but he wasn’t completely sure.

   “Can I wake him?”

   “Careful.”

   Sam shook the man’s shoulder, carefully as told, and they all held their breath as they waited for the man to open his eyes.

   “What the hell—?’

   Dean flinched. “Sir.”

   “Dad,” said Sam.

   John Winchester blinked again. And another time. “You were gone,” he said.

   “We went to the Neverland!” said Sam, who remembered now that this man was his father, but did not remember him in the same way Dean did. “There were mermaids, and waterfalls, and I could fly!”

   John looked at Dean. Dean looked away. “I’m sorry, sir.”

   “No,” said their father, sinking back into the chair. “I am. Sit down. You, too.”

   “Yes, sir,” said Castiel.

   “I assume you’re a Lost Boy.” 

   Castiel blinked in surprise. “Yes, sir.”

   “I’m sorry,” John repeated. “Dean, I… I shouldn’t have let it get that far.” He rubbed a hand over his face.

   “Oh,” said Castiel, as though he suddenly understood something. “ _Oh_.”

   “I don’t understand,” said Dean. “Sir.”

   “You know you’ve never met your grandfather,” John started. “He disappeared a long time ago, when I was a kid. Abandoned us, your grandmother and me.”

   “We’ve never met grandma, either—”

   “Shush, Sam, the man’s telling a story,” Dean said, even though he had no idea what his grandfather had to do with anything. He had no memory of his father telling stories in their living room like this, and he had the uncomfortable feeling this had nothing to do with him forgetting, so he was nervous but eager to listen now.

   “Your grandmother died a long time ago.” John smiled, but it was a tired smile. “I mean a _long_ time ago, Sam. From old age, I presume. I wouldn’t know.” He flexed his fingers, as though longing to grab a beer bottle but restraining himself, which was probably the case. “We didn’t know if anything happened to him, or if he just up and left. I remember missing him, crying myself to sleep every night and pretending I didn’t care during the day. I remember someone asking me why I cried so much, and if I wouldn’t rather be somewhere where parents weren’t important, where kids made all the rules and I wouldn’t have to grow up to become a bad father myself.”

   “You said you didn’t remember,” Cas said. “John.”

   “ _What_ ,” said Dean. “No way.”

   “Did you fly too?” Sam demanded. “Did you know Cas?”

   But John ignored both his sons and answered only the other boy. “I didn’t. Not there.”

   There was a long silence, in which John stared at them but didn’t see, and the boys looked at each other without knowing what to say. Especially Dean, thirteen now without realising it, felt so many things at once he wasn’t sure how his body could contain it all.

   “And then came Mary,” Castiel finally said, quietly. “The first girl he ever brought over.”

   “And then came Mary,” John agreed. “And she was better than all of us. I left the Neverland for her,” he said, clearly more for the benefit of his sons than anyone else. “And I became a bad father, after all.”

   “I’m sorry,” Cas said.

   Dean said nothing. The words _you’re fine, Dad_ were on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t let them fall. Like Mary’s unreachable kiss, they were not for John Winchester to take.

   “So am I. Dean… Dean, after your mum died, there were so many times where you'd come up to me and you, you'd put your hand on my shoulder and you'd look me in the eye and you'd... You'd say ‘It's okay, Dad’. You shouldn't have had to say that to me, I should have been saying that to you.”

   “Dad—”

   “You shouldn’t have had to clean up after me, or look after your brother, but you did. And I didn’t see that. I just thought of how I left all these adventures, this beautiful island, for Mary, and then lost her. I should’ve been happy with what she left me. With you boys. I didn’t realise that until you were gone and I… I _knew_. I knew Gabriel would be gleeful that he’d been right. I knew it was him who would have tempted you the way he’d tempted me. And I hadn’t given you any reason to come back.”

   He truly had not, but if this story has told you anything about Dean Winchester, you will know that he will never tell his father this. Especially after a confession like this: it had been a very long time since he heard his father talk so much, and without yelling.

   You do not have to feel bad for John, or forgive him for being a bad parent. Dean at least never fully did, despite the fact that John started putting in more effort. He still slipped up sometimes and the whole living room would smell like beer, and the boys felt once again lost while they cleaned up in silence. But I do believe you, too, deserve to know the whole story, before we leave the family in peace again—or as much at peace as they will ever be.

   Soon Dean and Sam and Castiel will grow up. It is sad to have to say that the power to fly will gradually leave them—they will call it want of practice, but in truth it means they no longer believe. You may see them any day walking around your city: Sam in his nice suit walking into an office, carrying a bag and wearing a tie. The mechanic owning the local garage is Dean, who at the very least has not forgotten his love for cars (and is finally allowed to drive them). And see that baker in that popular cafe everyone loves? That is Castiel, who makes cupcakes decorated with mermaid tails and burnt wings, though he isn’t sure why. And every now and then, a boy will come in to buy them, a dozen at once, and each time he leaves Castiel wonders if the boy was really there or if he was just a figment of his imagination.

   You need not be sorry for them. Sam was one of the kind that likes to grow up, and I am happy to tell you he met a beautiful woman called Jessica and enjoyed settling down with her rather a lot. And Dean and Castiel—they were married in white with blue and green ties, respectively, and when they did, Dean promised his new husband that there would be many adventures waiting for them.

   He didn’t remember the type of words Gabriel used to coax Lost Children into coming with him, but the promise hit a chord anyway. And he was right, in the end. They were just much safer adventures than those promised to them so long ago.

   I ought not to spoil this, but in a few years, their adventures will include a new person. Her name will be Mary-Anna, a small human being without the ability to talk or walk but with big, dark eyes and already a lot of chestnut-coloured hair. Dean will cry when he holds her for the first time. John will, too.

   But the best part is she will be loved enough that when Gabriel peeks through her bedroom window, he will know he cannot take her. And although he doesn’t remember either of her fathers, they will recognize the leaves on the floor that have come in through the open window, just the once. From that day on, they will close it every night, just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! It was certainly an interesting exercise in writing for myself and I hope at least some people enjoyed this, too ;) Do leave a kudo/comment and/or come find me on [insta](http://instagram.com/michelleisontour) or [goodreads](http://www.goodreads.com/littlereadingspace) ❤


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